Epidemiology and clinical outcome of COVID-19: A multi-centre cross sectional study from Bangladesh

Objectives: To investigate SARS-CoV-2 associated epidemiology and clinical outcomes in Bangladesh to understand the course of COVID-19 pandemic and suggest prevention measures. Methods: A cross-sectional retrospective study was conducted among 1,021 RT-PCR confirmed but recovered COVID-19 cases from six participating hospitals in Bangladesh. Results: Of the total sample, 111 (10.9%) cases were asymptomatic while the number of symptomatic cases were 910 (89.1%). Higher prevalence of COVID-19 persisted in the male population (75%) and for the 31-40 age group. More than 85% of the samples reported BCG vaccination mark. Common symptoms observed in our study samples were fever (72.4%), cough (55.9%), loss of taste (40.7%) and body ache (40%); whereas for the biochemical parameters, Neutrophil (46.4%), D-dimer (46.1%), Ferritin (37.9%) and SGPT (36.8%) levels were found elevated. Post-COVID complications including pain (31.8%), loss of concentration (24.4%) and anxiety or depression (23.1%) were found significantly prevalent. Conclusion: Our study has shown that adult males aged between 31-40 in Bangladesh are more vulnerable to being infected with COVID-19. With an indication for the rising trend of the asymptomatic cases, deployment of interventions to curb further community spread is necessary to avoid the grave outcomes of COVID-19 in Bangladesh.